No Shutdown! Oakland La Esquelita School Meeting On Closures, Charters, OEA & Fisher's Stadium

[Applause] been fighting this fight for about 40 some years the more things change the more they stay the same oh yeah you need to get your act together get into the membership either you're going to support the strikes or you're not there's nothing in the middle so whatever is going on over there they need to see if they can get it moving in the right direction we're not going to give up any of our schools occupy them all summer if we need to put people with change there we're not giving up our buildings you know when the school board [Music] is telling a lie when they open their mouths that thing last night was already determined before they even drug us through it i told moses and those guys you got to get well you got to get strong you got to help us fight if i don't say anything else i keep getting the question coach why are they doing this listen carefully they don't care they don't care they want the schools they want the charters they're being paid by the millionaires and the billionaires to empty black and brown neighborhoods we're saying i got kids out there so i got to watch it how many of us i i caught it before it got out three types of people three types of people those that watch things happen those that make things happen and those that wonder what happened i always have said strength in numbers there's no i in team we must fight this as a unit i understand they visited some houses last night i hope you stayed late and kept them up chauncey didn't even show up so recall yes uh ken just mentioned something about maybe we should take a group to sacramento and sit in the capitol until newsome comes down there and meets some of our demands i keep saying over and over again everything works if you work there's not one thing that's going to win this fight but we have our children to think about we must fight for the kids until they are old enough strong enough to fight for themselves so no to any closures no to any mergers we will occupy the buildings all summer if necessary if we get to june i mean i don't understand why our outgoing board is making decisions for two and three years from now they should deal day-to-day operations and our new board very important three seats are going to be open we need to make sure that we get two of those seats fighting for public schools and we will never see this happen again never see it happen again and it can't happen soon enough thank you and i talked to the principal and i was like yo like you know your school is a receiving school for a parker and he's like yeah you know the districts think we're going to get all these kids we might get like 30 families i'm like okay all right well i want to have a community meeting and he was like it's good like it's cool here like i know you mr chairman community i ain't telling me was like a no school closures me and i just said a community meeting and he said it's good so yesterday or the day before yesterday was a speak out in front of clay street and when i was sitting there um in front of clay street the principal hit me and was like i'm getting calls that i can't have to meet on on on markham campus so you guys i'm sorry you guys are sitting there sort of like a guerrilla meeting because we opened up the gate anyway but um but paloma just told me that they said the alarm the alarm went off or something and that's why that security guy was walking around here and so he's going to call the district to see if we have permission to be here so we might have to leave it all right whose school this art school that's about me moses me paloma i promise we built the culture to school for about 10 years man hello everybody my name is jazz i am a teacher at las vegas i teach third grade i also am a parent of a fourth grader at las veleta um i represent all of our families and our parents we have been working hard day and night since the board announced attacking our middle school we've met we met with amy at 10 o'clock yesterday before she took the vote it was a very emotional meeting but she simply did not hear what we had to say so we're here today as tim said at the end of this meeting i'm hoping that we can get a date on the calendar for our next action there's been a lot of talk but not enough putting that date on the calendar so i hope by the end of today we have our next action plan we have to be bigger we have to be louder and i'm hoping we can get the entire oakland community behind us to really show the district that this is not okay um it's 2022 and what they're doing to our black and brown students is i mean we already know it's super racist right so we got to show out for our kids that's why i'm here and i have a alaskalita alumni to speak to you all hello everybody my name is fernando i graduated from las golida around two years ago i currently am i met west and i think we're all aware that what's going on just should not be happening currently it's something that we shouldn't even just be here sitting down hearing hearing what i have to say i shouldn't be up here i should be you know enjoying my time with with my siblings knowing that they're in las colita and they're going to graduate the district in the board meeting that happened yesterday they heard people that were of my age of my colors saying that would they will go on hunger strike if they did not make the right choice and they didn't care they heard people of my age i'm 15 saying that they will not eat and put their health at risk and they still said no they've proven to us that every single effort that we've made so far means nothing to them so what we have to do is put even more effort if they don't want to pay attention to the effort we put now we have to put even more so they have to notice it so they have to pay attention to us we're going to force them to listen to us because they they aren't the ones in control currently this is our school our community we built this community from the ground up and they're just going to take that away from us course not we're not going to allow that to happen so thank you everyone for being here we're going to figure out what is our next plan to get this district to finally start listening to us and when they realize that all of this is wrong and they actually do something to keep these schools then i will be happy to say that this is all over and it was worth it thank you thank you all so much for being here in community my name is shane town i'm an oakland council member and also a mayoral candidate i beat this that you close down a school without proper process without an equity analysis why is it always you know families that are in our most marginalized communities are black and brown and low-income families that get the brunt of all the negative consequences there are no grocery stores in these communities there are no banks in these communities you know during coven we saw there was lack of resources in these contained communities and now we're saying to these same community members we're closing down your schools it's incredibly upsetting and what are we teaching our kids our kids who attend this these schools our kids who look up to those teachers that they they they hope to see every single day their friends the people that they're with their community what are we saying to them well we as adults are basically teaching them that they don't matter and that is incredibly heartbreaking for me because they are the ones that need the most love from us they are the ones that you know we talk about public safety all the time right like oh public safety is a priority well guess what how we get how we get to keeping us safe is investing more into our young people not divesting not divesting from our young people and so i stand with you in solidarity as one of the co-authors on the oakland city council demanding that the state step up we have surplus billions of dollars in surplus at the state and so we're asking the state to please step up and save our schools not just save our schools but really step up and show up for our families throughout the whole state of california this is just not a unique situation here in the city of oakland this is happening all across california and guess what we all have in common is that these school closures are again in our black and brown and low-income communities so i would like to hear what you have to say about your vote for any decision that's being made and at the port this is why we pass the community benefits i will not vote for a port that does not include the community benefits that are needed including the uh the affordable housing including all the community benefits are going in there including the impact report in regards to the environment this is just the very first step that we made that very clear on the city council and that we are not going to pass and we're going to hold the line if we don't get the community benefits that we deserve and we need to see in that in that process so i stand with the squad in that decision making and we are committed to that and that community process has started and it needs to keep going so if the a's or the fishers or anybody feels like oh this is this is it we won well they that's that's actually not right it kind of showed the public that that you chose fisher instead of the people exactly when you did that it was like a slap in our face and i'm just being honest with you because for you to come and then really like say that you're standing in solidarity you have to show it we have men that are on hunger strikes like that are risking their bodies so when you stand in that political stance we need you to really like speak what you're gonna do and then really do that we've been offered affordable housing and as you can see black and brown folks are the most most in the homeless encampments and have not been cleaned up so we've been made promises and people are on list and there's still no housing so if we're going to take your word you have to show us something you have to show us that you're willing [Applause] that there is not enough affordable housing going up that all we saw is market rate but that's a trajectory of the executive branch and this is why it takes people like myself council member five council member bass and council member vice mayor kaplan on the city council we can only write legislation we can't direct staff and so if the direction of the mayor is to direct staff to go build market rate well guess what that's what's going to happen the city and that's why i am not the endorsed candidate for mayor by the current mayor she does not want to endorse me because this is exactly what i want to do i want to move forward more affordable housing i want to make sure that our schools don't close if i was your mayor right now and i came out here and i said the schools are not closing i bet you that that would make a huge difference there are huge differences in how we who leads the city and there are what we can do on the city council is minimal but on the executive side that's where change can really happen okay so they're taking the mic but thank you all so much um as much as i appreciate uh the attention of council people as a brown person as long as you're throwing money at opd and at police academies you're participating in disempowering black and brown youth like let's just say it let's let's just say it charter schools are about gentrification which is entirely connected to policing making these connections only makes us more powerful working together the anti-police care project has been around for over a decade we support the hunger strikers and the schools facing closures unconditionally we have a lot of experience and shutting down we are part of a large coalition about a dozen black and brown community organizations you need our support we are here for you i'm amelia bailey i'm at current teacher at san coffee united former kaiser teacher before they closed kaiser to merge us at san coffee united we're making good headway at sankofa daily forming relationships with families awesome families awesome students at cinco for united but i don't want any other school to be subjected to what we were when i was at kaiser no we should not be giving away our public land that's kind of in a nutshell what's behind the attempt to close the schools selling land so the developers can come in and do whatever they want that's the end game that's exactly what i see privatization you were you spoke out about the port how is that involved with the education system i live here in d6 not far from where we are right now and i need this this this desert developed i don't need downtown that's already getting all these high rises to keep keep catering to rich white people coming from out of town we need this underserved community developed not downtown they want luxury condos and hotels yeah and we we don't have things like that over here but they want to take the one of the few things that we have over here that generates money and move it downtown to a place that already has is already building up so they should be investing money down here to build what we have currently melissa victory i'm running for mayor of oakland 2022 i'm out here in solidarity with reparations for black students campaign and the stop school closures i'm a product of public schools i'm raised here in oakland but i actually went to public school in berkeley because all these same issues with oakland unified school district have been happening for decades my parents knew it my grandparents knew it they were fighting the same things my mother is a teacher she's taught in public schools in private school she's taught for county head start she has personally experienced the failures to pay people correctly to support our teachers that caused our own family to become homeless when i was trying to finish high school and i'm here today standing so that students don't have to face those same issues that i did that teachers don't have to face those same battles that my mother did trying to provide for me and my sister i'm here because we don't have any deficit we have an actual surplus at the state level california has so much money now a 40 45.7 billion dollar surplus how does it why don't they have any money for the schools there's no political will right we want to invest or pay other people or do studies and initiatives again we've known the problem it's existed for decades it's cyclical they've been threatening to close these schools since at least 2019. i was at these same meetings watching parents cry and plead with the school board watching students plead to not have their education taken from them to have more access and instead they're getting the exact opposite so i'm here in standing in solidarity so that people can remain here that people can stay rooted here can have access to education and opportunities for their families to thrive in this city and what's your position on the stadium because it came up here at this meeting that people felt it was wrong for the the board of or the city council to vote and favor this environmental study it was absolutely wrong for council to approve that environmental impact report it does not show any successful mitigations for the toxic levels of pollution that will be in air and water to build or to maintain the project even uh with the railroads um sorry i'm losing my words a bit but several orgs have already submitted letters immediately after that vote showing that there was not enough analysis done that there is no way for this project to safely work for the people of this community i am always going to go to bed for our community i was on the community benefits agreement negotiations committee for the labor and economic development subcommittee for nine months putting out a comprehensive package of what labor economic development community benefits look like and my understanding is the a said zero they were not going to fund any of that so my position is if it's going to happen you have to come through the community on our terms so i do not support the eir as it stands and i absolutely will not support a stadium without robust robust community benefits laid out exactly how our community benefits committee has drawn them out but the long showman and the maritime workers are saying that that stadium right in the middle of a port portland privatization of portland would actually destroy the working port my priority is to keep the a is in oakland and to actually develop and invest in our current tourist area where the existing stadium is at my family members who live in the deep 90s in this community work as stadium workers i absolutely want to protect those jobs and protect the vitality of our city but it needs to be in the right place for the right reasons building rebuilding the stadium if they want to stay here in the coliseum absolutely it's still an option we have our exclusive negotiating agreement with the african american sports and entertainment group even the a's themselves have said they want to develop that area as a tech campus so there's still opportunities and options we are very far from any final approvals or votes or breaking grounds and i again want the best for our community i want to invest in deep east oakland and i will not support any development in west oakland that is going to be harmful to our community and again not partnered with robust community benefits for all development projects that are going to be proposed going forward in our city i stand with iow and all workers i will always protect workers and their workers rights their rights to healthy environments their rights to have a say in things that may change their jobs or lose their jobs i am a union attorney and a union member myself i actually did a two-hour black business roundtable with the president of ilw local 10 trent willis so i am clear on my position and working in solidarity with our workers with the community benefits agreement steering committee and with our elected leaders to make sure that we all really do win and that doesn't look like selling off our city and our community to a corporation i am the site representative for westlake so the first thing i want to acknowledge is that if you offend somebody or you do something wrong publicly then a real apology is also public so i did misspeak when i spoke with mr killings earlier i want to clarify so i apologize to the e-board for ms speaking but i also want to clarify what my intent was what i told mr killing was elected leadership and that was incorrect for me because the e-board is elected leadership but i am clarifying right here right now that it seems to me it is my opinion that the president vice president of oa have not taken any real action or had any real plans set up for oea members as evident by the fact that this is side by side organizing i asked them in the e-board meeting directly from not the day that it came out as gossip on the internet but the next day when ousd released an official statement about school closures i asked directly of the president and vice president of oea who were present in that e-board meeting what was their plan what actions did they have planned and the response that i received was silence so i cannot blame the e-board for that now i got somebody shaking their head and that's fine but there were other people there at the e-board and when i got that list and saw my schools on the list the first thing i did was email the president the vice president of oea and ask them for all the site rep information from the affected site so i could coordinate the response i got a day and a half later was contact this third party i'm not going to put that name in it because it has nothing to do with this they're not the leadership and i'm going to speak directly to what that council member said right if your executive your leadership you direct action now i understand that not all the actions come from leadership but what i'm going to tell you is just critically thinking is if you're in charge of all of oea and somebody told you today that they're going to close 13 schools me personally i'd be taking action at least the next day if not just to coordinate people and so what i'm saying that did not as a sight left that did not happen i'm putting that out there right now all the coordination that has happened primarily has been site by sight grassroots which is great now more recently there has been some more movement from now i'm using this term when i say leadership i want to be clear because that is a loose term so when i'm saying oa leadership i'm speaking to vice president and president of oea because i understand that that term is a loose term and i do apologize because when i use that i use it loosely i should define it more well yeah i do apologize about that but i am being clear about my perspective as a site rep and i'm willing to bet that many side reps have that same perspective my question to you would be how many times have you been reached out to if you're a cyber from oa from leadership that said hey what are we doing how can we help you let's give you what we've already done last time this is the first rodeo this is the first time oea's been through school closures we literally went through the roots closure and the kaiser closure the same year when our strike the same leadership was in place you're going to tell me that from that time for 2019 and now they don't have no playbook to open and say let's lean on that so i apologize first and foremost your community as a member of oea that we are not ready let's be honest about it but i also am here to hopefully galvanize some more support through oaa members and let you know like hey there's multiple teachers here we have a lot of resources we want to help one of the options that we have on the table is a potential strike now we have to be honest about that about community members is that going to fit needs of everybody right and the goal that is it to get a raise for teachers the goal of that is to stop school closures right and the other goal is the other direction in that was to to to have our leadership once again vice president president reach out to other unions i can tell you as a fact that we have members at my site that have social connections and were reached out to by presidents of other unions and they reached out to leadership directly and got silenced i can tell you that right now whether you're aware of that or not that did happen so there's a lot of stuff that is not happening that should be happening that's my opinion but regardless of what israel isn't having i'm going to do something because i care many of us here are doing something because we care whether or not the leadership once again when i say leadership i mean vice president president seem to not be stepping into that executive role and trying to provide any guidance or direction in a time of need but what i see here is beautiful what i've been seeing is beautiful we need to continue i'm not saying that to down oea because i am a member of oea i'm not saying that now teacher because i am a teacher many of us here are teachers and i appreciate y'all showing up now it's like double the people since i first spoke but i felt that it was important for me to come back alvarado executive board member of the oakland education association and site rep at manzanita okay i'm just asking if anybody needs interpretation because i want to make sure that folks could all access the information i'm about to say so we could go back and forth about what happened at an executive board meeting with members there we could go back and forth all day but what i found really disturbing is that these rumors and things that are negative about our leadership which i include myself in and as a rep even before i was on executive board we work our butts off in classes all day long we are working class people of color our president is a black man and our vice president is a latino man and for lies to be spread about the people who are doing the work and are working class men of color is just wrong all right so let me finish speaking please the real enemy are those five board members who voted against school closures the real enemy is the privatizers who continue to close our schools and if you look around and you're like wait why is there just one executive board member here because of the very public attacks and lines that have been spread and we are not the enemy we are here trying our darn best to do the best that we can [Music] [Applause] so please ask questions before making assumptions because i'm in there in all those meetings because i have the capacity because i don't have children but my family lives out here in deep east open they live in district 7 right on the 70s again please like let's not try to divide and pit our own against each other i don't understand where this is coming from but i want to get to the work and so i just wanted to keep it really short and say like this is not about us being against each other especially when we're attacking other working-class folks of color that's it oh i can't wait to see that strike though that's what i'm talking about uh hey this is my brother right here moses oh marade first office 18 day hunger strike hey let me tell you something hey 78 to mccarthy they over there lit right now they blocking traffic they out there with sign i couldn't tell them to come here though so i think that if you guys ain't doing nothing after this you should definitely stop by there because they they over there organic with it and no one eats oakland they might start a side show over there you know what i'm saying so yeah a good side show keep our schools open sideshow you feel me parker they turned up over there how y'all doing yo um first and foremost i want to say thank you all so much for the support uh in the past you know 18 days but also i want to say thank you for um being willing and open to uh receive the energy that sanchez and i were putting out a lot of people that experienced what we what we were putting out um didn't move and didn't do anything so i want to commend you all for doing things when when you heard the call um if it's kind of um it it feels sorry my words are not with me as much i should be in the hospital but as we know these systems the hospital tried to to to give give me a psychiatric evaluation they wanted to try to put me in a straitjacket just because i chose to do a hunger strike but um and that's the type of things we're striking against right is systems that like have these strange protocols that don't serve the people that they're supposed to serve so um it it it's very nostalgic being here again i started i started um my education career at malcolm elementary about i don't know nine ten years ago uh so and i remember this place used to be all concrete and paloma where you at paloma um hi paloma um so everyone say hi to paloma i remember being here with paloma and all of us just like it was all concrete and the garden was not even as far as this it was only about up until this palm tree here um or aloe whatever tree that is and we just kept saying kids in the east need greenery kids in the east need space that's beautiful um so we applied for this really huge grant so it's really good to be here to see people laying down here and to see all these structures up um but i i say that to say like you know when you when you have a vision in mind um it's very possible for that vision to come true right and it's very important that we keep that vision um insight i've been hearing in the past 15 20 minutes you know folks being honest with one another and calling one another out and i think those things are important and and and simultaneously because that's what we've been doing we've been airing everybody out and simultaneously i want to remind us that like even though some of us exist in bodies that seem similar to one another sometimes we have different approaches and different outlooks so it's okay to critique it's okay to tell people in leadership that you ain't doing and that's not okay you know i'm saying like because for some reason sometimes when you work so hard to climb these ladders there are ways that you box yourself in and when it's time to get active you're like oh i can't because i'm not supposed to nah we gotta we gotta scratch that we gotta really start to think outside the box about what's possible when people are under attack you can't go to protocol on how to protect them you step out in the streets and you fight for them you understand what i'm saying so i i i understand that there's processes within these unions and things like that to make sure that you know um yeah that they have procedure like i get i get procedures sometimes and sometimes you got to put the procedure in a playbook aside and you got to get busy and and that's what we got to start thinking about is that it's okay to step outside the law it's okay to step outside the rules especially when your morals and your sight is is right and it's just when you know you're right and you just you can do whatever the hell you want to make sure that that's heard all right so um again i want to say thank you all i want to say this fight's not over last night we expected that um sasha and i definitely expected that they they swindled us and tricked us into um that position um and for me the only reason i didn't continue was because internally the morning of the 18th i had shut down my internal uh spiritual fight because i i had already planned on ending it my something was going on internally and i got two babies um and a lot of elders stepped in and said you know we're gonna need you for the long haul so so recruit um so i do want to let folks know sanjay is still on a hunger strike y'all sanchez a fierce spirit and they are not going to stop um until they feel like there's some movement so while it might feel like it's over i still need folks to be on fire i still need folks to push on gavin newsom we are going to we're going to change some things on instagram just to make sure the letters that i got getting blasted 12 000 emails went out to the board of directors they cannot use their emails right now all right that's lovely and gavin newsom when they met with us one of the main things that they wanted us to stop was the social media and the political pressure that they were receiving so um i know that because we changed our gears towards the board there hasn't been so much pressure on newsome but we're going to change that up a bit we're going to press new some again because this is a statewide issue all right um i definitely want to say for myself i'm going to take some time to rest and to laugh and to try to eat and uh put you watch some netflix i watch netflix for years so [Applause] but on the other on the other end of this we do want to get busy so i want to say in the meantime as folks with hunger strike for oakland schools take a little break to breathe folks keep the pressure on these institutions we will return with a lot of different strategy direct action we're going to folks homes we're not letting folks feel comfortable in this city as long as they don't make us feel comfortable in this city you understand so again thank you all for your support over the past couple weeks and don't be afraid to question the system please don't be afraid to push your bosses i want to tell y'all straight up i got real i got real issues with kylo johnson trammell i want to say that loud and clear for whoever here knows her i am upset that human being is in a position of power and i heard she's how many generations oakland if you that many generations oakland you step behind closed doors and you can't look at people that you're supposed to represent and be real i don't know if you're actually from oakland i want to say that and i know she's in a big position of real power and sometimes it's hard to to take a stance but you got to when it comes to situation like this and the baby's like on the line you have to somebody threaten your check kyla and you still nervous about that and you you decide to to lay it down on babies because your check is threatened we got to get you about that seat that means you can't handle the pressure that means you can't handle it so i got issues with the board of directors the five i do have issues with kyla and these and i'll remind you these these are not issues that cannot be resolved right we talked about humanizing the process that means that we can have conflict and we can resolve it so yes i have a conflict with our leader and until that's resolved the pressure's on so if you know her personally let her know she knows my number tell her to call but we need we need to shake this system up we need to shake the district up and folks that ain't ready to serve us we need to get the hell up out of here thank you brandon dawkins the incoming vice president of organizing for seiu local 10-2-1 and this closure of schools what's the position of sio1021 we do not support these closures we don't support the closes we don't support the cuts why are they taking place excuse me why why are they taking place well the district is pretty much putting out a message saying that uh because of a budget uh shortfall that they have to close the schools they are putting out a false message saying that if they don't close the schools that they can't give teachers in classified staff wages which is a pretty much lie because you know we've had folks that went into the books and looked and oakland unified is actually doing a lot better this year doing a pandemic than they have in the past so we actually have a budget surplus how many of your members would be affected by closures uh well we got a thousand members right now um in oakland unified chapter so a good amount will be impacted they actually all will be impacted and these are like black and brown schools i mean you think it's aimed at minorities or working class black and brown people absolutely i mean since 2004 18 schools in oakland has has closed out those 18 schools 16 of them were in black and brown communities that's 60 percent of the schools and then out of those 16 schools 14 of them came back as charters and one of the issues that came up there was a rally of longshoremen and educators um around the issue of the stadium as well uh john fisher what's your view on that it's all it's all connected libby's connected with fisher fish is connected with kipp which is a which is a charter school the fish is connected with multiple charter schools so the connection is is that uh you know they're trying to it's a money grab it's a land grab so the schools that osd is trying to give up in black and brown communities fisher may try to swindle his way in to get some of those properties to create more charter schools which is basically revenue for those charter schools and you know the billionaires you know i i have a firm belief that billionaires cannot teach our children and they're not closing any charter schools they're charter schools they're not closing any schools above 580. so that's a big problem and the issue of the labor council the building trades they're supporting the stadium do you think that the union should oppose that and change your position i mean absolutely especially after all this yeah labor unions we we should change our position we should change our position and we should not support that stadium it's going to hurt working people it's going to hurt working people it's going to hurt you know our members in particular because we have enough members that's living in the communities around the uh howard terminal and there are 80 000 maritime workers who would be radically affected most a lot of them are black and brown as well yep i mean i understand the position of jobs and need jobs we need jobs but how many people are we going to displace at the expense of needing jobs and the this issue of public education i mean it seems like it's for all working people not just teachers not just public workers public public education is for the public and any time a charter school comes to our community you are displacing public schools you think that there should be a state repeal of the charter school law yup yup absolutely absolutely the state of california needs to change that law uh so you know it's so charter schools can't easily get pro public school property and california has a 45.7 billion dollar surplus you've got all these billionaires 177 billionaires in california it seems like they don't have money they need to get our money to the schools to make a great school system yep yep okay thanks no problem take care